1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a billing system, a server apparatus and a billing apparatus, in particular directed to a billing system for billing a user for a print output or a copy output from a multi-functional peripheral performed in response to an instruction from the user.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, with advancement of office automation equipment, such as copiers and printers, or network development, document printing is available in a wide variety of environments. It is possible that, for example, a user uses their client apparatus to accumulate print data in a server apparatus connected to the client apparatus via a network, and prints the print data on a printer remotely positioned from the client apparatus.
In a printing billing system discussed in Patent Document 1, a client apparatus, a printer, a print server apparatus, and a printing billing apparatus are connected to each other via a network, and the user operates the client apparatus to preliminarily accumulate print jobs in the print server apparatus. Subsequently, to make a print request, the user issues an instruction through a display screen of the printing billing apparatus. In response to the instruction, the print jobs of the user accumulated in the print server apparatus are transmitted to the printing billing apparatus and displayed in a list on a screen of the printing billing apparatus. Then, the printing billing apparatus executes a print job selected by the user from the list, and charges the user for the service based on the print log.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Laid-open Patent Application Publication No. 2003-345558
However, according to the printing billing system disclosed in Patent Document 1, a target for printing and billing is print jobs by a printer, and hence the conventional printing billing system does not support a so-called multi-functional peripheral providing a copy function in addition to a printing function.